Rainbowduino Word Clock. By Russ Hughes

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1 Rainbowduino Word Clock By Russ Hughes

2 OVERVIEW This word clock is based on the NeoMatrix 8x8 Word Clock by Andy Doro from Not having access to a laser cutter to cut the faceplate and case I adapted the design so it could be 3D printed. After building a couple of clocks for friends and family I came to the conclusion that I needed to decrease my parts cost so I adapted the design to use a Rainbowduino and a 8x8 RGB matrix display. This reduced my cost by almost half. The design for my NeoMatrix version of the word clock is available at PARTS LIST 1 Rainbowduino 1 DS3231 RTC 1 LED Matrix 1 Power Connector 1 Small PC board 25x25mm or 1 x 1 2 6x6x4.3mm Tactile Push Buttons 7 2Mx8 or 2-56x0.25 Screws 4 3Mx32 or #4-40x1.25 Screws 9 Small Lengths of hookup wire 1 3D Printed Case and Diffusers 3D PRINTING All parts except the "back.stl" print without support. The back has a cutout on the side for the Rainbowduino s USB connector so it can be reprogrammed or USB powered. It should be printed with supports. I printed the clock face and back in Black PLA and the diffusers in either White or Translucent PLA on a Printrbot Simple Metal using 0.2mm layer height and 2 top, bottom and Perimeter Shells. For the clock face I used 50% perimeter overlap and gap fill to keep the light from the NeoPixels from bleeding through the face. For other colors you may want to increase the thickness of the faceplate. The OpenSCAD source is included if you want of need to make any changes.

3 You will need to print one each of the "face.stl", "back.stl", "buttons.stl" in black, and one of the "diffusers.stl" in White or Clear Translucent. White PLA will give a softer display and Clear Translucent will give a brighter crystal like display. I originally had the diffusers printed as one piece but the light bleed between letters was more then I liked, so now they are separate parts. ASSEMBLY Remove the male and female headers from the J2 and J3 ports of the Rainbowduino board, they won t fit in the case. You need to attach wires directly to the holes for the SDA, SCL, 5V and GND on J2 and to GND on J3 so remove the solder from the holes.

4 If your RTC board has a diode located near the red arrow in the picture below, remove it from the board. It is intended to be a charging circuit and it should not be used as it can cause damage to your battery. Take a look at these web pages for more information on this charging circuit: #msg Remove the header from the RTC board. You can unsolder it or just clip it with wire cutters. Solder 4 wires approximately 4 inches long to the SDL, SDA, VCC and GND holes on the RTC board. Solder the other end of each wire to the corresponding SDL, SDA, 5V (VCC) and GND holes of the J2 port on the Rainbowduino. The wires should be inserted from bottom of the board and soldered on the top.

5 Place the two tactile push buttons on the small PC board. They should be about holes down from the mounting hole and about 3 holes apart as shown below. Solder a small length of wire between the two buttons upper, inner legs and attach a 4 length of wire to it. This wire will connect to the Rainbowduino GND hole on J3 port. Connect another wire to each of upper outer legs of the button. These wires will connect to the 0 and 1 holes of the Rainbowduino s J8 port. Solder the other end of the wire connected to the right button to the 0 hole of the Rainbowduino s J8 port. Solder the other end of the wire connected to the left button to the 1 hole of the Rainbowduino s J8 port.

6 Place a printed button in the holes of the back as shown below. The buttons should be inside the back with the small end poking out the back. These are the time adjust buttons. Use a small screw to secure the pc with the buttons over the printed buttons using the standoff close to the holes. The tactile buttons should be facing down so the printed buttons can activate them when pressed. You may need to use a washer or other small spacer if your buttons are taller than mine were. Insert the power connecter through the remaining hole in the bottom of the back and secure it in place with a nut. Attach a wire to each of the positive and negative terminals of the power connector. Use colored wire or mark the positive and negative leads to avoid confusion later on.

7 Use 2 small screws to mount the RTC board battery side down to the two standoffs as shown in the picture below.

8 Connect the positive wire from the power jack connector to one of the green VCC screw terminals and the negative wire to the GND terminal. Carefully place the Rainbowduino board in the back being careful to not to pinch any of the wires The USB connecter should be aligned with the hole in side of the back and secure it in place with 4 small screws.

9 Connect the RGB Matrix to the Rainbowduino. On the back of the RGB matrix, the 16 male pin header closer to the text marking should be connected to DRIVE - GREEN- DRIVE pin header of Rainbowduino. If the RGB matrix you are using is different than the one I used it may have different markings, in this case you should consult the Rainbowduino Wiki for more information.

10 Place the 64 diffusers in to the clock face as shown below. Place the back of the clock over the face of the clock and secure the two together with 4 long screws being careful not to dislodge the diffusers.

11 PROGRAMMING THE CLOCK The Rainbowduino board is Arduino compatible and is programmed using the Arduino IDE available from Select the board type Arduino Pro or Pro mini in the tools menu. The clock uses two additional libraries you will need to install. See the Arduino site if you need more information on how to install libraries. Rainbowduino V3.0 Library for Arduino IDE available from: RTCLib library available from: Compile and upload the WorldClock_Rainbow.ino sketch using the Arduino IDE. Enjoy your clock. Russ Hughes October 2015